Emperor Gebrselassie to grace 2016 SOYA awards

Retired distance running legend Haile Gebrselassie who is also the Ethiopian Athletics Federation President will grace the 2016 Sports Personality of the Year Awards (SOYA) as the celebrity chief guest.

The 13th edition of the annual awards will be held January 20 next year where the winner of the Sports Personality of the Year award will walk away a KSh1m with organizers stating they will review other categories of the event after receiving a KSh16m boost from telecoms operator Safaricom.

The presence of Gebrselassie – who won two Olympic 10,000m gold medals and nine world titles – is expected to add more flare to the event with his athletics rival and founder of the SOYA awards, Paul Tergat, saying the money will go into prizes, logistics and the event itself which is meant to recognize outstanding achievements by Kenyan sportsmen and women.

There are 16 categories to be contested for covering various disciplines as well as individuals, federations, coaches, persons with special needs and community heroes.

“This year was an exciting one despite various challenges Kenyan sportsmen and women still did their best and upheld the name of our country in the international arena. Some of the challenges Kenya faced include twice failing to beat the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) deadline and the 2016 Rio fiasco that surrounded Team Kenya during and after the Rio Olympics.

“It was an unfortunate time for our country to be on the headline for all the wrong reasons. During our days, we never saw something as unprecedented as this. But that is now water under the bridge and we need to encourage our athletes to focus and maintain their integrity has they have being doing all those years. Despite what transpired in Rio our sportsmen and women gave their best and did it for the love of sports and they truly excelled,” Tergat told Citizen Digital.

Tergat could hardly hide his glee from the prospect of meeting his longtime archrival Gebrselassie albeit now wearing a different hat as the Ethiopian athletics boss.

“It’s a great honor that he will be gracing the event. He has come to Kenya on several occasions but this time round he comes as a leader and I hope that more sportsmen will begin taking up leadership roles.

“In sports is not meant to bring enmity it’s to bring together people from various cultures. One thing that I saw in Haile is that he was a passionate sportsman and he never tolerated mediocrity. We had heated rivalry sometime back in our careers but we remained close friends and our families are very close.

“If I lost a race I always knew that have lost to a better opponent and he deserved it. It challenged me and I always went back to my training determined to be the best among the best. That is all behind us now as we focus on serving our athletes,” Tergat said.

In 2016, Team Kenya for the Rio Olympics had a historic performance, where they emerged top in Africa and 15th globally with a 13-medal haul; six gold six silver and a bronze medal.

Prior to the Olympics, the Rugby 7s team made Kenya proud in April with a historic performance at Singapore Sevens after a dominating 30-7 victory over series leaders Fiji in the finals.